photo
caption:HOW COULD THIS HAVE HAPPENED
TO ME?: In shock over the sudden change in the direction of her
life after 18 years of marriage, Helen McCarter (Kimberly Elise)
stares into space as she tries to figure what to do next.end
caption.

Diary of a Mad Black
Woman: Kimberly Elise Is a Cast-off Housewife in Faith-Based
Revenge Movie

Review by Kam Williams

On
their 18th wedding anniversary, Helen McCarter's (Kimberly Elise)
husband Charles (Steve Harris), who is an attorney, reminds her
about the ironclad pre-nuptial agreement she had signed years
ago. He then unceremoniously ushers her out of their suburban
Atlanta mansion, though not before introducing her to his long-hidden
mistress, Brenda (Lisa Marcos).

The heartless philanderer
rubs salt in his childless wife's fresh wounds by callously boasting
about the two children he's secretly fathered with his paramour.
Reeling from all the revelations, Helen staggers out of the house
and finds a ready shoulder to lean on in Orlando (Shemar Moore),
a sensitive, handsome man with a heart of gold and the patience
of Job.

Homeless and cut off without a penny, she ventures
back across the tracks to the inner-city neighborhood where she
grew up. There she is taken in by her pistol-packing grandmother,
Madea (Tyler Perry), and her great-uncle, Joe (also played by
Tyler Perry).

Incensed by Helen's humiliating ordeal, Madea
decides that her granddaughter had been wronged. Bent on vengeance,
she drives Helen back to confront her ex and his girlfriend.

This
is the set-up of Diary of a Mad Black Woman, a movie which
never decides whether it wants to be a romance drama, a revenge
comedy, or a morality play. As a result, we're left with a confusing
film which alternates between mean-spirited slapstick, love scenes,
and Bible lessons.

Imagine a cross between Martin Lawrence's
Big Momma's House and Eddie Murphy's The Klumps
with Christian and Cinderella themes. The film was adapted from
a play originally commissioned by televangelist Reverend T.D.
Jakes, which explains the religious sub themes.

Both the
stage and screen versions were written by Tyler Perry who appears
as three different characters, cross-dressing as the scene-stealing
Madea. Tyler, previously wrote a couple of other Jakes-sponsored,
spiritual-oriented stage productions, including Woman, Thou
Art Loosed.

What ruins Diary of a Mad Black Woman
is Madea's boorish, bull in the china store act. It is reminiscent
of the sassy black woman stereotype popularized by Sanford and
Son's Aunt Esther. Loud and ignorant, Medea tends to trivialize
every scene.

For example, it is impossible to take Helen's
budding new relationship with a good Christian man seriously,
when you've just witnessed Grandma gleefully slicing a couch in
half with a chainsaw, and you sense that something more outrageous
is coming next.

Fans of this irreverent brand of humor
should make sure to remain in the theater through the entire roll
of the closing credits, that features a selection of silly outtakes
after a gospel song.